<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>closure by Naiesu</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063563">closure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naiesu/pseuds/Naiesu'>Naiesu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>two roads diverged in a yellow wood [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Character Study, M/M, Mutual Pining, Trauma, honestly fear of ruining a friendship, remember when dorian talks to his father in redcliff?, yeah - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:35:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naiesu/pseuds/Naiesu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first look at Halward Pavus is almost too much.</p>
<p>It’s been so long, month after month of silence passing by, leaving Dorian wondering where he stands with his family. With his father. He knows where he stands with his mother—a failure, just another disappointment to fuel her drinking. His father is another beast entirely.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>two roads diverged in a yellow wood [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>closure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first look at Halward Pavus is almost too much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been so long, month after month of silence passing by, leaving Dorian wondering where he stands with his family. With his father. He knows where he stands with his mother—a failure, just another disappointment to fuel her drinking. His father is another beast entirely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You tried to,” Dorian stops abruptly, breath catching in his throat. He’s desperate not to cry, not to let his father see just how much he’s been affected by this. It slips through the cracks anyway, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“change </span>
  </em>
  <span>me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From the moment he had come into the tavern his father had looked at him with short patience, eyes scrutinizing his every move, every word. Every crack in his voice had been met with the roll of Halward’s eyes, and just standing in front of him bearing his heart makes it feel like he’s being spit on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something changes, though, with his words, and Halward’s expression shifts. “I only wanted what was best for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You wanted what was best for </span>
  <em>
    <span>you.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Dorian spits the words. It feels like every emotion is coming out of him in a rush, a tidal wave of repressed misery that makes the tips of his fingers crackle with magic. “For your </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking legacy! </span>
  </em>
  <span>Anything for that!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He steps up into his father’s space when he says it, but watching Halward look at him, pitying as always, makes him step away. A spare glance thrown his way before walking deeper into the empty tavern, not stopping until shadow swallows him. He places his hands on the bar, feels the splintering wood beneath his fingers, the slight stick of old alcohol.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dorian,” Cael says, low, low, low enough that Halward wouldn’t be able to hear unless he was straining. There’s a pregnant pause where Cael lifts his hand, as though to rest it on Dorian’s arm, but he drops it back to his side. “What do you want to do?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I want to go home, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks, before he can catch himself. What does that even mean? Where </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> home? It’s no longer in the man behind him, no longer a childhood mansion with doting parents, no longer in a mentor spoiling him at every corner. Alexius is imprisoned at Skyhold; his mother is a thousand miles away, likely unable to remember his name. His father is the reason he’s run away in the first place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A bit of wood catches under his nail when he curls his fingers into a fist. “I don’t know,” he grits out, finally.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cael is quiet for a moment. He sighs. “I’m aware you aren’t asking for my input.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, I’m really not. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Dorian doesn’t say it. He waits to hear what Cael’s thinking before casting the first stone, but he knows it’s going to be cast regardless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Dorian stays quiet, Cael says, “I think you should speak to him before we leave.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That takes him just a little bit by surprise. “You’re joking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cael sighs again, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s wearing his </span>
  <em>
    <span>Inquisitor </span>
  </em>
  <span>face. Dorian can already tell he’s not going to like what he’s about to hear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want you to stay here,” he says, looking down at the space between them, at the bar, anywhere but at Dorian. “I don’t think you should’ve come in the first place. But you’re here now, and I—” He cuts off whatever he was about to say, and Dorian furrows his brow. “I like to think I know you well enough to know you would regret leaving. Maybe not today, but certainly by the time we returned to Skyhold.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dorian closes his eyes. He wants to be anywhere but here, is already looking forward to the moment he’s able to turn and walk through the door. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re a big boy, now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you can leave whenever you want. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But he can’t. Not really. The conversation would follow him back to Skyhold, would chafe at him until he ended up sending a very strongly worded letter back to Tevinter. One that might never be answered, might never even be opened.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He grits his teeth, looks at Cael one last time, and then storms back to his father.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me why you came,” he snaps, and the sound of his voice is like a growl through his teeth. Anger is the only way to force the tears back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Halward’s hands are carefully folded in front of him, skin lost in the folds of his robe. It’s luxurious and expensive and ridiculous to be traveling in. They’re more alike than Dorian wants to admit to himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I knew I would drive you to the Inquisition…” Halward trails off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dorian doesn’t let him finish. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t. </span>
  </em>
  <span>I joined the Inquisition because it was the right thing to do.” He looks at Halward, at the sad tilt of his mouth, the tired lines around his eyes. Someone so familiar that feels like a stranger. “Once I had a father who would’ve known that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Halward doesn’t look at him, purses his lips and casts his eyes away. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Dorian thinks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He deserves to be ashamed.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The seconds tick by as no one speaks, and Dorian packs the hurt away and turns to the door. He doesn’t look at Cael, knows he’ll follow wherever Dorian decides to leave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Once I had a son who trusted me,” Halward says. His voice sounds hurt and Dorian feels tears prickling at his eyes, hot and uncomfortable. He stops, hand on the door. “A trust I betrayed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one moves. Dorian looks at the back of his hand, wondering if he should push the door open and storm out, or walk back to his father. The answer never comes, so Dorian stays put.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I only wanted to talk to him. To hear his voice again.” Halward pauses and Dorian swears he can hear him swallow. “To ask him to forgive me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s entirely unexpected. A string of words Dorian never thought his father would say, out in the open between them with a witness hanging at the shoulder of the room to hear. He turns before he can stop himself. His father is looking back at him, hands at his sides, rolling his fingers anxiously against his palms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What? </span>
  </em>
  <span>He wants to ask for clarification, to hear him say it one more time, to listen and memorize the exact intonation. Cael is watching him, too, and he smiles when their gazes meet, nodding his head in Halward’s direction. It’s clearly encouragement, and Dorian holds onto it like a life raft in the midst of a storm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he steps forward Cael must take that as his cue to leave, as he ducks his head, humble, and walks to the door. Dorian reaches for him just before they pass each other, but in the wake of everything that’s happened, everything that Cael has heard, he’s too nervous to touch him. Feels like his skin is tainted, is worried he might spread it to something so pure, so untouchable. That this knotted thing between he and his father might catch Cael and choke him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cael stops, expression turning to worry, and Dorian forces his hand back to his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t leave,” he whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gets a smile in return. “Never.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/naiesu_s">naiesu_s</a> on twitter</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>